The Binding

February 25, 2019
Collins’s solid first adult novel (following several YA novels) is a haunted, Dickensian fantasia. At the story’s outset, teenage Emmett is a farmer’s son in an alternate England at an indeterminate point in the past whose mind is riddled with gaps due to an unspecified illness. He receives a letter that calls him for an apprenticeship with a bookbinder, Seredith, who’s reputed to be a witch. Emmett quickly discovers that Seredith is not your run-of-the-mill bookbinder: she draws traumatic memories out of people’s minds and hides them away in books, thereby removing the memories from their minds. The first client Emmett meets is a man named Lucian Darnay; their encounters unsettle and even enrage both of them, but neither knows why. Emmett eventually discovers there is a book with his name on it, and it holds an essential secret about him. The relationship between Emmett and Lucian plays out satisfyingly, but the novel suffers from portentous conversations and a few plot points that the characters don’t realistically react to. Emmett is a YA protagonist, too—sullen, reluctant, wrapped in victimhood. This is an enjoyable novel for readers of any age, but the story remains YA at its heart.

Starred review from March 1, 2019

The author of YA fiction and a playwright whose work has been performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Collins dreams up a first adult novel about a world where books are forcibly forbidden and young Emmett Farmer is secretly invited to become a Bookbinder. The beautiful leather-encased volumes he creates contain not fiction or history but memories that, once bound, are forgotten and stored away. And one day Emmett finds a volume with his name on it. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2019
Collins' dystopian novel is set in an alternate England at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.In the absence of specific dates, this novel suggests its period with various clues: small farms, no plumbing, gaslight, horse-drawn carriages, factories but no trains. The backdrop is a Crusade that, indeterminate decades ago, caused books to be, if not entirely forbidden, then tightly regulated and socially taboo. Emmett is sent by his farmer parents to be apprenticed to an elderly Bookbinder named Seredith, who practices her craft in an isolated house near a marsh. Recently, Emmett suffered an illness which marked him as unfit for anything but binding, which, he rapidly learns, means more than handcrafting books. Customers come to Seredith to have their memories wiped of disturbing experiences through confessions she then enshrines in beautifully bound books and locks up. One such patron/patient is Lucian, a young gentleman who will figure--or has figured; we won't know until later--significantly in Emmett's life. There is a brisk underground trade in true bindings, as opposed to mere novels, and unscrupulous binders exploit this market. Among them is Mr. de Havilland, Seredith's son, who, after her suspicious death, appropriates her stock of secret bindings, which, like loaded guns, will make explosive appearances later. He also takes charge of Emmett. The middle section, in which Emmett is back on the farm with his parents and his sister, Alta, is a flashback in which we learn the source of Emmett's ailment and also more about the peasant culture that seems to hearken back to Britain's pre-Christian age. Except for the fact that a corrupt binder's wares play a role, the concluding section, told from Lucian's point of view, presents a mostly fact-based dystopia of Victorian aristocracy and its excesses. The worldview of this novel is bleak, but readers will not fail to appreciate the many sly analogies to the true-story-obsessed publishing world of today.Though set in an alternate universe, Collins' fictional world rings very true.

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March 1, 2019
Collins' first foray into adult fiction presents an alternate world reminiscent of nineteenth-century England, brimming with correctness and repression, where books are literally made from memories. Binding is not just the craft of making an elegant tome but also the art of taking away selected recollections to help a person forget pain, grief, or a terrible secret. Emmett, a young apprentice binder, learns the craft from the elderly Seredith but also learns that many despise binders, believing they take a piece of a person's soul. He has been taught that a binder cannot steal anything, the memory must be offered freely, but there are unscrupulous buyers who sell volumes for personal profit, and even a binder can be bound. Emmett and an aristocrat's son unknowingly share a secret?one that could destroy them both. Using evocative language to express a lovingly told tale of lost memories, Collins wraps her story of a passionate, forbidden relationship in mystery and magic.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)